Resources

Cook Books I Use

This is an absolutely fabulous book, even if you are not a vegetarian! Each page is a new recipe and every recipe has pictures of the finished product
as well as the preparation process. Plus it has the break down of the nutritional information! Best.Cookbook.Ever!

This was one of the first cookbooks that I ever bought. I got it in a set with the Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book and The Pilsbury Cookbook, but I find that I use the Fannie Farmer far
more often than the other two. In fact, I have used it so much that it is now in two halves with some loose pages shoved in the middle. One of the things that I really like about this book is
that it has conversion tables, plus it covers cooking and baking basics. And there is a canning section!!

This book is the ultimate bread book. It explains not only how to bake bread using the bread machine, it explains the whole process of making various breads.
It covers various ingredients and the effect that they have on the bread. It even explains how to create your own starters! There are beautiful pictures with step-by-step visuals on how to make each bread.
Plus it has a recipe for just about every variety of bread that you may ever want to bake; and they have all been fabulous recipes!

Thursday, March 30, 2006

I got some northern pike on sale last week and wanted something quick for dinner tonight, so pike it was.

Northern pike is a fairly common, mild-flavored, predator fish from where I grew up. It has a loose skeletal structure which makes it very difficult to get completely bone-free. But this was professionally filleted, so I was good to go.

I actually took the recipe from the package the fish came in (but of course I made a few changes). It had capers in it and I had bought a jar of capers months ago, but didn't have any recipes to use them in. Mmmm... capers!!!

2 cloves garlic

2 TBS olive oil

1 small tomato

1-2 TBS butter

1-2 TBS wine or sherry

2 TBS basil

2 TBS lemon juice

3 TBS capers

2 TBS Italian four cheese mix

salt & pepper

Mince garlic and saute in olive oil. Chop up tomato and throw in the pan with the garlic. Throw wine (I actually used sherry), basil, capers and butter. Cook until the butter is melted. Salt and pepper to taste.

I used my clay pot cooker for the fish. It works great for fish too! I put a little olive oil in the bottom of the pot, But I don't think this was necessary. I put the fish fillets in frozen and poured the lemon juice and the caper sauce over the top. I sprinkled on the Italian four cheese mix and baked this for 20 minutes at 500F.

It was DELICIOUS!!!! This is going on my favorites list. And now I have a recipe to use up those capers on. Mmmm... capers!!

Monday, March 6, 2006

I love cream-of soups. They are my favorites. But I have had so much trouble finding a good recipe for them. I have tried many different ones over the years without much luck.

But if at first you don't succeed -- try, try again.

I had some left over cauliflower and half-n-half and some determination, so I decided to make cream of cauliflower soup.

I found recipes for cream of mushroom and cream of celery so I took some ideas from them and then just had to wing it. I've made lots of from-scratch pudding and thought the base for the soup would be very much like that.

1/2 head cauliflower

1 thick slice sweet onion

2 TBS butter

3 chicken bouillon cubes

1/8 cup flour

1/8 cup Swiss cheese - chopped or grated

2 cups half-n-half

2-1/2 cups water

1 egg - mixed well

Chop up cauliflower and throw into a sauce pan with 1/2 cup water. Cook on medium heat.

Finely chop one thick slice of sweet onion. I love the Andes sweets, or, if you can get it, my all time favorite is Vidalia! Throw the chopped onion in with the cauliflower along with two tablespoons butter.

When the cauliflower is just about cooked through and the water has boiled down, throw in bouillon cubes. Sprinkle flour over the cauliflower and mix in.

Turn down the heat and pour in half-n-half, rest of water, and egg. When the soup has heated up, add Swiss cheese. Cook until thicken.

Once the cream has been added, DO NOT OVER HEAT!!!

This was the best cream-of soup that I have ever made. I would definitely make this again, and I plan to try other versions, like: mushroom, broccoli, potato... OH! I CAN'T WAIT!!